Jersey City housing complex a virtual ghost town; townhouses planned

The Montgomery Gardens public housing complex, in the heart of Jersey City, not too very long ago housed 1,200 tenants.

It's now a virtual ghost town.

There are only about 130 tenants currently residing in 80 apartments at the sprawling six-building, 434-unit complex on Montgomery Street, just down the road from the Beacon condo development, the lavishly renovated old Jersey City Medical Center.

The emptying out of Montgomery Gardens, the scene of a recent spate of shootings, is part of the Jersey City Housing Authority's elaborate plan to do away with poor people high-rises and replace them with mixed-income housing, schools, retail shops, a grocery store, and other amenities.

"It is obsolete," Housing Authority Executive Director Maria Maio said of the complex that was built in 1957 with federal funds. "We don't have enough money to maintain properties like Montgomery Gardens, and we think mixed-income developments has proven to be the best way to develop affordable housing."

Over the past couple of years, three buildings in the complex have been emptied. The grounds are overgrown with weeds, strewn with trash. The spray park fountains are dry. One resident said he ran a hose out his window to cool down children still living at the complex during the recent heat wave.

The residents who have moved out have all been either relocated to another public housing development or have been given a Section 8 voucher to help pay rent, Maio said. So far, the moves have been voluntary, but at some point they could become mandatory, she said.

Valerie Benthall, 45, one of the residents still at the complex, is angry about having to leave her home.

"I don't want to leave, I've been here since 1970," Benthall said today, adding she is the third generation of her family to live at the development. "They don't even clean up. They don't even put on the water for the kids to play, they just want us to get out. We want to stay."

Maio said she wasn't aware of the weeds, and trash, and non-functioning spray park. But "maybe the (spray) system just doesn't work any more," she said. "If you have children, it may not be the best place to be."

Montgomery Gardens is hardly the first public housing development in Jersey City to go down this path. The Curries Woods, A. Harry Moore, and Lafayette Gardens housing developments have all been transformed into low-density communities.

Nationally, the old public housing model -- tall buildings with high concentrations of people at or near poverty -- is seen as a failure, breeding grounds for crime and despair. The current thinking is that mixed-income communities will bring better services, safer communities, and hope to the poor.

"Unfortunately, A. Harry Moore was notorious for crime (and) drug activity," said Maio. The conversion to townhouses "worked out great. It certainly has made a difference to the neighborhood and lives of residents there."

The goal is to replace the 434 units at Montgomery Gardens with 3- and 4-story townhouses containing about 250 units, and then build another 600 units on nearby lots. Half the new units can be market-rate housing.

The project hinges on the Jersey City Housing Authority receiving a $30 million federal grant, which Maio says would be leveraged to raise more than $300 million from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and other sources.

Grant winners will be announced in March. If the funding comes through, the time frame for completing the project would be roughly five years, Maio said.

As part of the plans, a 70-unit building at the corner of Montgomery and Florence streets would be renovated and turned into the Catherine Todd Senior Building and would be just for seniors. This project would take two years, Maio said.

There's a meeting tomorrow night, 7 p.m., at the Saint Peter's University MacMahon Student Center, Glenwood Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard, to discuss the plans with the public. A similar meeting is on tap at the same place and same time on Aug. 15.

Illtack Hwang,who operates the Wash World dry cleaners across the street from the complex, said today that his business has suffered because of the tenants who have left the complex. .

"My business is down almost 40 percent," Hwang said. "I don't care what they put there as long as there are people."

A worker in a nearby restaurant said, "It's OK that these projects move became it's dangerous here and it will be better for business." She added, "People are afraid to come here at night."

Muhmmad Erbad of Manbool-e-Elahi restaurant said about the planned changes, "It's good. These people don't have money. Don't spend money. And there will be less crime."